Fat Cat Spreads Out

TWENTY-ONE

Anna came over to Chase’s apartment that evening to help get Inger moved to Julie’s place. She insisted on lifting Inger’s suitcase onto Chase’s unmade bed.

“It’s no problem for me, Mrs. Larson,” Inger said, taking her clothing from Chase’s dresser drawers, where she had crammed her things in on top of Chase’s.

“You shouldn’t be lifting in your condition,” Anna insisted.

“Everyone keeps telling me what I should and shouldn’t do.” Inger threw her hands out in frustration. “How do I know what I can do?”

“Inger, I’ll get you a book about being pregnant,” Chase said, “but really, you need to make an appointment.”

“I don’t know any baby doctors.”

Chase remembered what Mike had said. “Don’t you have an appointment with a doctor at the clinic?”

“I guess. But I can’t go to someone I don’t know anything about.”

“You help her pack,” said Anna to Chase. “I’ll get a doctor’s name.”

She left the room and came back as they were stuffing Inger’s underwear into the corners of the suitcase.

“Here.” Anna thrust a piece of paper, torn from the pad in Chase’s kitchen, into Inger’s hand. “This is the number of the doctor my friend’s granddaughter is using. She’s due in three months and likes Dr. Ingersoll very much.”

“Inger and Ingersoll,” mused Chase. “You should be able to remember his name.”

Inger smiled for the first time that evening, a small smile. “If it’s someone you know, that’s different. I promise I’ll call him Monday.”

“Give him my friend’s name. It’s there on the paper.”

Chase wondered who was going to pay for the doctor, but she wasn’t going to start worrying about that yet. Chase hoisted the suitcase off the bed and wheeled it behind her. They made their way into the kitchen, where Anna put the kettle on for herbal tea.

“Next project.” Anna dusted off her hands symbolically. “Quincy’s costume.”

“Oh, can I help?” Inger sparked to life. She gave a wide grin. “I’ve been thinking and I have some ideas.”

Chase cocked her head toward Inger in surprise.

“He should be Babe the Blue Ox,” Inger said, clapping her hands.

Quincy lifted his head at the noise.

“It’s better than Puss in Boots,” Chase said. “But how are we going to do it?”

“It shouldn’t be too hard.” Inger turned the piece of paper over on the counter and started drawing. In two minutes she held up a sketch of a cat with horns and ears on a headdress, and a little bodysuit with a cow’s tail at the back.

Chase looked skeptical, but Anna grabbed the paper and said, “Yes! This will be great. I have a bolt of blue felt that I bought for half price. I thought we might be able to use it in the shop somehow.”

“Do you have white felt for the horns?” Inger looked better than she had in days. Her blue eyes twinkled and her smile brought sunshine into the apartment.

“I have something, I’m sure.”

“So,” said Chase to Anna, “we need to go to your place.” Anna had the sewing supplies.

“Everyone else is there,” Anna agreed. “Might as well.”

Chase had a sudden thought. “Should we bring Quincy, with the parrot there? We’ll have to. He has to be there in order to be fitted, doesn’t he?”

“Lady Jane Grey does have a cage,” Anna said. “She’ll have to use it tonight.”

The three of them, four counting Quincy, drove to Anna’s. Anna and Inger went in Anna’s blue Volvo, and Chase followed with Quincy in his carrier.

“You’re going to look great,” she cooed to him on the way. “The other cats will all be dull next to you.” She hoped she was right.

At Anna’s, bedlam broke lose.

As soon as the carrier was set on the floor of the strange living room, the cat sensed something very different was in this place tonight. When the huge parrot walked up to his crate and started pecking, he swatted, claws out. The people ran to them and they all started making a lot of noise. A pair of hands picked the parrot up while the cat’s owner snatched his crate. But, before the bird could be caged, the clever cat hooked his claw in the latch, nudged it open, and jumped out. The cat stopped, mesmerized by the biggest bird he had ever been this close to. The parrot hopped to the floor.

“Control that filthy animal,” shrieked Elsa, stooping to grab her parrot’s feet and pick her up. The bird squawked and flapped her wings, scattering feathers onto the floor. “He’s going to kill Lady Grey.”

Chase cradled Quincy in her arms and looked at the animals. They were about the same size. “How much does your bird weigh?”

“Fifteen point eight ounces.”

“Ounces?”

“She was a pound when I weighed her at my place,” said Eleanor. “Here, let me have her.”

Quincy hadn’t taken his wide, staring eyes off Grey since he’d escaped. Chase made sure she had a good grip on him. He wasn’t struggling to get at the parrot. Maybe he was intimidated.

Eleanor deftly got the parrot into her cage. Quincy didn’t relax one bit.

Eleanor eyed the cat. “I’ll take Grey into the bedroom.”

“You’d better put her in the bathroom,” Anna said, picking the feathers off the floor. “My sewing machine is in the bedroom.”

“That doesn’t seem very convenient.” Elsa stood watching as Anna cleaned up after her bird.

“It’s convenient for me,” Anna said evenly. “I live here.”

The sooner these women left Anna’s place, the better, thought Chase. If Elsa isn’t a murderer now, she might become one. Or Anna might.

Anna got a tape measure and wrapped it around Quincy in a few places, then handed the cat to Inger, but before she and Inger made it to the bedroom, a knock sounded on the front door. Bill Shandy didn’t wait but came right in.

He greeted Anna with a tight hug.

“How are you doing?” she asked him quietly so Elsa and Eleanor couldn’t hear. Chase was close enough to, though. “You still okay with my decision?”

Bill ran a hand over his face. “I’m fine now that I’m here. The sight of you cures everything.”

“Oh, you sweet-talker, you.” Anna patted his shoulder.

“I can’t stay long, but I wanted to see you for a few minutes.”

Chase gave them some space and they talked together on the couch for fifteen minutes or so about flowers and music and wedding details.

After Bill left, Anna and Inger finally retreated to the bedroom to do some work on the costume. They took Quincy with them. That left Chase with the twin sisters. Julie had called to say she’d be very late. It had sounded like Jay Wright was involved. Chase couldn’t very well blame her for finishing her evening up with Jay. She probably wanted to discuss her findings with him from the dinner with Bud, the real estate lawyer. Chase hadn’t mentioned that she wanted to move Inger to her house tonight. Chase inwardly kicked herself and felt a stab of pain behind her left ear. If Inger stayed with Chase again, it would be her own fault.

Chase envied the speed at which Julie’s romance was progressing. For that matter, Anna and Bill Shandy were moving quickly, too. They were all further along than she was with Mike Ramos. Everyone was leaving her in the dust! Then she considered the woman in the same room who had just lost her husband and gave herself a mental slap.

Elsie and Ellie, as they called each other, sat side by side on the couch, both of them staring at Chase with the same hard brown eyes. Grey, brought in from the bathroom, chattered away in her cage on the table at the end of the sofa.

“Who wants to play? How are you? Nothing is forever. Everyone’s a critic.”

Chase burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” asked Elsa.

“Your parrot! She’s a regular little philosopher. Did you teach her all her phrases?”

Eleanor leaned forward like she was going to spill a secret. “She watches TV.”

To illustrate that point, Grey started shrieking like a police siren. Chase’s head almost split open.

Anna ran out of the bedroom, looked around, glared at the cage, and went back to the bedroom muttering, “That bird again.”

“She’s . . . something,” Chase said, rubbing her temples.

Elsa and Eleanor smiled identical smiles.

The cat had been turned loose in the bedroom when the two women brought him there to work on a noisy machine with some cloth. The animal that so intrigued him was on the other side of the bedroom door, so he stayed close to it. The animal smelled like something delicious, but it was much too big to bring down. Besides, it had almost acted friendly. He was intrigued. When the animal shrieked and the older woman ran out of the bedroom, he slipped out. He slunk around the edges of the room, nearing the big bird cautiously. Nothing was going to keep him from investigating this strange creature.

Everyone had eaten, so, besides talking about the parrot, there wasn’t much else to do.

“It’s too bad I can’t let her out.” Elsa gave Chase a baleful look. “She could show you her tricks.”

“It’s too bad there isn’t a parrot competition at the fair,” Chase said.

“It is too bad,” said Eleanor. She spoke to Elsa. “Maybe you could suggest it for next year.”

Elsa drew back in horror. “I’ll never be at that fair again! I’m never coming to this town again! As soon as I get my husband’s poor body, we’re leaving. We may never—I mean, I may never come back to Minnesota again.”

That was understandable, thought Chase. If Elsa hadn’t killed him and didn’t get locked up in Minnesota for a good long time, why would she ever return? Maybe, thought Chase, she could do some digging while they were here together.

“I suppose,” Chase said to Eleanor, “your sister told you about how she found her husband after he had been killed?”

“Oh my, yes. She did. She said she screamed her head off.”

Elsa leaned her head on the back of the couch and closed her eyes. “It’s something I hope to never see again. I close my eyes and it’s right there, every night. I wonder when that will stop. He was lying there in the straw. There wasn’t very much blood. That metal dowel handle was sticking out of his ear.” A tremor went through her.

“You must have gotten pretty close to see all that,” Chase said.

“Oh no,” both sisters chorused.

“I might have taken two steps,” said Elsa, “but I backed right out. It was full of straw.”

“She couldn’t go inside the building,” Eleanor said.

“No way,” Elsa added. “I couldn’t get close to him. I wanted to run over and check to see if he might be alive.”

“Why didn’t you?” Chase was missing something here. “You saw Dr. Ramos and my cat there, too, right?”

“Yes, I saw everything.”

“But you weren’t inside the building?”

“Oh no. I couldn’t. I saw everything from the doorway.”

“Why couldn’t you go inside?”

“We’re both deathly allergic,” Eleanor said. “That straw on the floor might kill her.”

Elsa nodded. “As it was, just getting a whiff and screaming like that set me off. I had to use my inhaler four times that night.”

“When Elsie called me, she was wheezing so hard I thought she might have to admit herself to the emergency room.” She turned to Elsa. “Good thing you had an extra inhaler with you.”

“Yes, I’m glad you told me to bring it. I sure needed it. The first one ran out on me.”

She hadn’t even entered the building? Allergic to straw? Maybe she hadn’t killed him after all. Chase remembered how awful her face had looked. It had been red and splotchy. Was that from her hay allergy? If so, did that mean she had been inside? Or would she react that way from the exposure from the doorway?

Could she have stabbed him and he staggered into the building after that? Probably not. There had been no indications that he didn’t die where he was found.

“You know, they’ve let that man loose,” Elsa said. “The one who was there when I found my dead husband.”

“Who are you talking about?” Chase asked. “Dr. Ramos?” Chase was indignant. “He didn’t kill your husband!”

“He was right there. But I think now he didn’t do it; he’s so good to Grey. Do you know why he was beside his body?”

“He went in there to get my cat!” And Patrice’s cat collar. “Your husband was dead when he went in.” Chase heard her voice getting strident. Pain spiked behind her eyes.

Elsa huffed. “That Winn Cardiman. Nasty man. I’m pretty sure he did it. And they’ve let him go free, too.” She acted like the argument was over and she had won.

“I wonder what’s on TV tonight,” Elsa said, sounding bored.

And now we change the subject, thought Chase.

Elsa looked around for the remote and found it on the side table, where Anna always kept it, next to Grey’s cage. As she picked it up, Chase noticed a paw reaching up over the edge of the table. Before she could react, Quincy had jumped onto the table and swatted at the lock on the cage door. Grey nosed the door open and flew out.

All three women held their breath. Grey perched on top of her cage and peered down at the cat. Quincy crouched, his tail twitching slightly. Then he stretched his nose up. Grey put her beak down and they touched.

As Quincy purred and licked Grey’s beak, the bird started squawking, “Everything’s coming up roses.” She sounded exactly like Ethel Merman.